Violent Crime Reduction Bill

Clause 23(1) makes it an offence for a person to use someone else to look after, hide or transport a dangerous weapon so as to facilitate that weapon being available to the person for an unlawful purpose. The requirement of an ““unlawful purpose”” means, broadly speaking, that the offence of using someone to mind a weapon is committed by a person in any circumstance where it would be an offence for that person to possess the weapon. Clause 23(2) then sets out circumstances in which a weapon is to be regarded as available for an unlawful purpose. The purpose of this subsection is thus to provide a gloss on and to clarify what is meant by a weapon being available for an unlawful purpose. The effect of these amendments, as has been explained, would be to make clear when a weapon is available by reference to when it is capable of being made available. The mismatch might well be confusing. Prosecutors and others might well wonder why, if it is enough for the offence to be made out if a weapon is capable of being made available, the offence in Clause 23(1)(b) refers to the weapon as ““being available””. As the clause is currently drafted, it already covers a wide range of circumstances in which the offence of using someone to mind a weapon can be committed. In particular it should be noted that by virtue of subsection (1)(b), the circumstances need only ““facilitate”” or be ““intended to facilitate”” the weapon being available for an unlawful purpose. Therefore the offence can be committed even if the weapon is not in fact available in that way. For example, if person A gives person B a weapon to look after, the offence may be committed even if person A cannot get the weapon back whenever he or she wants. It should also be noted that the use of the word ““include”” in subsection (2) indicates that the cases set out in that subsection are not exhaustive. I believe that that should cover the point raised by the noble Baroness. It needs to be remembered, particularly in the context of the questions she has asked—where a gun is broken down into its component parts—that that would still, in our view, constitute a firearm. We think that we have drafted the clause in a way that means that a weapon could be classified as available if broken into components and if held by different people if it could be recovered by the person who used another to mind it. We think that we have drafted the clause in a way that covers the point that the noble Baroness has drawn to our attention.